A tour de force, DOSSIER storms the shore in full armor, flies its crest and then lurches into the battlefields of love and war, which in this tale are tantamount. It is at once a debut, an encore and a retrospective – referencing previous albums as well as itself for an effect that is nostalgic and, track 4/disc 1 calls it, synesthetic. Bethurum’s commitment to authenticity is poignant. The initial beats and bells in Train of Thought were sampled on the train tracks of Elliot Bay where Bethurum runs, the layered stabs in Silhouette were wielded by his middle-school trumpet, and his signature kick drum in Arms Race is the explosive punch of a Claymore-mine. For all its smoking guns and grandeur, DOSSIER is at times disarmingly simple. It’s about a boy – and so, of course, also about a girl. In Goodbye Girl he’s bidding farewell to “she” and love and in the next track (It Rained) he relearns “cooking for one”. Battle scar or skinned knee - you be the judge; his heart’s on his sleeve. This interpretation is allowed throughout; only five songs feature vocals, which declares Bethurum’s preference for the unrestricted applicableness of instrumentals. Happy then that fortune favors the bold, as that DOSSIER surely is. Two discs and 32 tracks burn, blast and pirouette triumphantly to the closing credits: “Written, produced, performed, engineered and mastered by Benjamin N. Bethurum.” A soundtrack for the armies of one.
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